Dolly Parton was lonely when, at age 18, she moved to Nashville as an aspiring singer/songwriter. She missed her parents and 11 siblings. She was also desperately poor — so much so that she sometimes resorted to cruising hotel hallways at night, searching for half-eaten room-service trays waiting to be picked up.
“Even a basically honest person,” she has said, “can do desperate things when hunger begins gnawing at them.”
But there was one bright spot during her early days in the country music capital: Parton had met a local boy at the laundromat.
Carl Dean’s good looks struck Parton, as author Martha Ackmann notes in her upcoming biography of the singer, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool.” Parton liked that “he seemed more interested in who she was than what she looked like.”
Still, the relationship grew quickly “on his part and slowly on her.” Parton was “smitten” — but when Dean announced that he planned on marrying her, she was “caught off guard.
“She liked Carl more than anyone she had ever dated, but she was intent on getting her career started,” Ackmann writes. “In addition, Dolly had seen the price women paid for marrying early and having a bunch of kids.”
Having helped raise so many of her siblings, she wasn’t inclined toward having children of her own. She also didn’t see herself as a typical housewife.
Luckily, quiet, well-mannered Dean could cook and sew — and was willing to do the housework.
“They just flipped over each other,” Parton’s longtime pal Judy Ogle, who she grew up with in Sevier County, Tennessee, says in the book. “If Clint Eastwood and the Marlboro Man had a kid, it would be Carl.”
There was one big thing Dean and Parton did not have in common. He had absolutely no interest in show business.
Once, he visited his sweetheart in the studio while she was recording 1966’s “Dumb Blonde” but quickly left.
“Who wants to listen to the same song being sung over and over?” he reportedly asked.
One of Parton’s most iconic songs, “Jolene,” meanwhile, came about after she noticed that a redheaded bank teller appeared to have a crush on Dean and began teasing him about it. (The name, however, came from a little girl who asked Parton for an autograph.)
Both Dean, who owned a paving company, and Parton had conditions for each other: He would never attend a movie premiere or awards show with her. And the singer— fiercely committed to her career — she wouldn’t be around to cook and clean.
“She liked his independence and said she needed freedom both in her marriage and as fuel to her creativity,” Ackmann writes.
They got married in 1966, when she was 20 and he was 23.
While he would sometimes drive her to appearances at the Grand Ole Opry, Ackmann writes, “Carl told Dolly he had no stomach for glitz or a tuxedo. Attention was annoying and intrusive when all he wanted was a private life. Fans ambushed him at the auto parts store, pestered him at ball games, tried to snag an autograph when he ate at the Ponderosa Steakhouse.
“Once when he and Dolly sat down [at a restaurant], fans approached and Carl grumbled. ‘Oh hush, Carl,’ Dolly told him. ‘They’re after me.’”
Dolly’s friend Fred Foster lived near them and told Ackmann that the couple went on camping trips out West and had getaway vacations to Florida. But Dean hated to fly and one “of the couple’s favorite pastimes was driving to small towns in the South.”
Foster says “their marriage may seem strange to a lot of people, but they seem[ed] to get along with their style.”
Dean would also secretly visit Dollywood, Parton’s theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near where she grew up.
“He bought his own ticket — stood in line and got his ticket. He didn’t want somebody giving him a ticket ‘cause he was Dolly’s husband,” Parton told the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Parton, meanwhile, proved herself to be a savvy businesswoman who knew her worth.
When Elvis Presley’s manager, the infamous Colonel Tom Parker, called to say Presley wanted to record “I Will Always Love You,” Parton — a longtime fan — was overjoyed. Then she found out that Presley only recorded songs for which he owned all or half of the publishing rights.
“As enticing as the offer was,” Ackmann writes, “Dolly understood that maintaining financial control of her property was critical, both as an artist and as a member of a large family” to whom she intended to leave her estate.
It was a gutsy move from a 28-year-old woman going up against the most famous singer in the world.
By the mid-70s, Parton was touring incessantly but not making much money after expenses. Frustrated by the disparity, she flew to New York to meet with label executives.
“When you son-of-a-bitches learn how to sell a female Elton John with long hair and big boobs that dresses like a freak,” she reportedly said, “then we’ll make some money.”
As Parton’s fame — and wealth — skyrocketed, Dean, who died in March at age 82, remained uninterested he was in her glitzy world. Whenever he was hounded for interviews or a comment on his wife, he stood firm.
“I’ll go somewhere, drink some beer, and shoot the bull with you,” he told reporters. “But I am absolutely and positively not going to discuss Dolly.”
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